I had a great idea for a blog post. It came to me while I was in the kitchen, working on making an omelet for me and fried eggs for my wife. The stove was hot, the butter at just the right temperature in the pan, so I couldn’t go write the idea down right then. No problem, it was a great idea, I would remember.

I didn’t really mean to stop writing. But I haven’t posted anything here since July. I actually wrote quite a bit since then, but nothing that struck me as worth publishing. There are 25 posts sitting in draft mode. In November, I wrote a skeleton of a post that said, “This is probably my last post.” I remember what was happening then. I had just discovered that my aunt had died–a year earlier. And a favorite cousin had also died–two years earlier.

My students are just finishing an assignment. I asked them to write down 10 possible topics for an informative speech every day for a week (well, five days out of seven). In other words, they would wind up with 50 possible topics.

Tomorrow is July 4, a day that Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence. We call it Independence Day, but the reality is there were five years of war yet to come before a treaty was signed granting independence. Stop and think about that: it means we celebrate not the achievement of independence, but its declaration. Continue reading “Ideas are dangerous, and so must be communicated”

If you’ve read much here, you know I think one of the most important aspects of speaking, if not the important aspect, is the unique bityou bring to it. Since it’s so easy to look information up these days, a speech can’t just be a convenient way to share information–there are too many more convenient ways. The unique point of view, the unique experiences, or at the least the curation you perform–those are the factors that serve to make a speech worthwhile to an audience, offered in the context of a unique connection with them. Continue reading “How to get ideas for speeches”

Lamott seems to me to be saying you have to write crap to get it out of your system, and if you’re willing to just let it flow, you will find amid the effluence some worthwhile material. Adams, on the other hand, says that coming up with bad ideas a) gets you started on the process of coming up with something good, and b) provides quality raw material for good ideas. Not just fertilizer, in other words, but seeds.

As I watch speech students struggle to come up with “the” right idea, right structure, right approach, I wish I could communicate this principle. Perhaps Mr. Pink will help do so.

I’ve added a new category that, over time, will grow to be a substantial part of this blog. Some sources offer good starting points for developing speech ideas, especially ideas that are “off the beaten path.” Post in this category point to these. Most, if not all, of these sites are chosen because they do not fit the predominate assumptions of our time and are likely to be contrarian as a result.

For instance, most people assume, based on media coverage, that there are basically only two political positions: liberal and conservative. In reality, political ideas exist in a much more complex matrix than a mere bipolar spectrum can comprise. A site such as Nolan Chart not only makes this clear, but also offers resources for exploring ideas not only of interest to peers in a speech class, but also outside the usual conversation.

It is not our purpose to advocate any particular position, but rather to enable effective advocacy by students, which is furthered by going outside the mainstream to surface and examine assumptions that otherwise would not even be noticed as assumptions.